Kenya's Chief Justice Willy Mutunga leads Supreme Court judges in Nairobi, March 30, 2013
Our future survival as a nation depends on what foreign policy decisions are made by our government.
Originally published in The Star.
We seem to love discussing the state of the Kenyan nation, a euphemism for discussing our political factions.
I believe it is high time we pay great attention to the state of the planet/globe. Our future survival as a nation depends on what foreign policy decisions are made by our government in our name as a country.
It is not idle gossip that World War III may be on the horizon. I am not an expert on military matters, but I am a keen student of history. I can see that there is a struggle between the unipolar world led by the US (and which includes Europe and Japan) and the birthing of a multi-polar world led by BRICS.
I can read that the “exorbitant” privilege of the US dollar is also under challenge. If the war happened Kenya, through its leaders, would have taken a side without our consent. What is worse is that our foreign policy seems to straddle between warring forces.
When you extend this argument to Africa, such a war will be about who ultimately controls Africa’s resources. Africans understand well their wisdom in the saying “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” Africa has been this “grass” since the slave trade, colonialism, neocolonialism, and neoliberalism.
Discussions on what role China is playing in the orbit of neoliberalism have become complex and divisive, ideologically and politically. Various positions abound.
What is important is that discussions on social-imperialism that have been with us since the era of Nikita Khrushchev have never stopped.
These debates are a wealth of material in unravelling what is a discussion on whether China has always been on the path of becoming a superpower, particularly after the reforms that have been ongoing since the exit of Mao Zedong and the rule of Deng Xiaoping and his successors to date.
We cannot understand the state of the planet without this serious discussion.
I have argued in three articles published by the STAR that the foreign policy decisions our government has made on Haiti, Palestine, and trade pacts with the US, and EU in the recent past subvert the 2010 Constitution. I have also argued that disobeying court orders is tantamount to overthrowing the Constitution.
These foreign policy decisions are subject to Kenya’s delegated sovereign power to the executive. Sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya as decreed by Article 1 of the Constitution.
Foreign countries that are wont to pontificate about the rule of law, democracy, are now guilty of perfidy, double standards, racism, and hypocrisy when they do not respect the sovereignty of the Kenya people and their supreme law.
The media in the US has reported that President William Ruto will visit Washington on May 23 to mark the 60th anniversary of U.S.-Kenya diplomatic relations and “celebrate a partnership that is delivering for the people” of both countries while affirming “our strategic partnership” with Kenya.
While US citizens may not have a transformative constitution, Kenyans have one. One of the key value and principles of governance in Kenya is public participation that is decreed in Article 10 of the Constitution. Our court’s have made it clear what public participation entails.
I am sure the US knows of this position, but the people of Kenya do not matter when the US government gives orders to our President. We still remember when William Baker III asked one of our past ministers whether he knew what the “New World Order” meant.
Without waiting for an answer Baker told him that it meant the US gave the Orders. That is the reality of the “partnership that is delivering for the people” of the US and Kenya.
The media in the US reports that “The leaders will discuss ways to bolster our cooperation in areas including people-to-people ties, trade and investment, technological innovation, climate and clean energy, health, and security.”
We are well aware that there has been negotiations between US Trade Representative and Kenya for the so-called STIP. Since Kenyans have not participated in these negotiations.
STIP is being fangled in clear subversion of the Constitution. We do not have any indication of what the business community in Kenya will get out of this proposed trade deal. Are these negotiations in any way undermining the strengthening of the East African community?
The US media is reporting the impending departure of Kenyan police forces to Haiti despite the court rulings. Why is the US of the view that the Mission of the US in Haiti cannot go forward without Kenyans?
Why is President Ruto not seeking the participation of Kenyans in matters that affect our survival as a nation and the lives of our compatriots who may be headed for slaughter in Haiti?
It seems to me that our Motherland is being drafted as a junior partner for US interests in Africa, in Palestine, and in relation to the possible ongoing cyber war against China. Are these not matters of our survival that we should participate in?
The status quo of the planet, permanent as it may seem, is not without its fierce resistance from the citizens of the globe. The resistance of global citizens that I monitored when George Floyd was murdered; the resistance to the genocide in Palestine; and the resistance to militarism, must surely reflect a growing consciousness in both the citizens of the Global North and the Global South that global citizens have a common internal and external enemies who collectively murder, exploit, dominate, oppress, and strangle our planet.
Such a status quo is a danger to the survival of the planet. This status quo is neither sustainable nor acceptable. It is time the citizens of the planet collectively liberate the planet from its collective enemy.
Willy Mutinga was the Chief Justice & President of the Supreme Court of Kenya from 2011-2016.
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